


Don't wait

by melonbutterfly



Series: Stranger Things Have Happened [8]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, M/M, Palladium Poisoning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-16
Updated: 2013-09-16
Packaged: 2017-12-26 18:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/968936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonbutterfly/pseuds/melonbutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter how hard he tries, there is one thing - one person - he just can't let go of because at the core of it, Tony is a selfish bastard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't wait

"Are you going to break up with me?" Tony demands. A part of him wants it, wants to push, wants for Loki to get out of this before it's too late while another part is pleading hysterically for it not to happen, not that, no, _not Loki_. It's pretty much how he's been feeling nonstop for the past number of weeks.

Loki's eyes widen, shocked and hurt and- scared. Loki looks _scared_ , like he's thinking if he isn't going to do it, Tony is. Tony knows this for a fact because Loki has worn this particular expression before and the last time he did was the last time he broke up with Tony, and he's thinking _yes, do it, come on_ , but Loki makes a noise low in his throat, raw, and flings both arms around Tony's neck. "No," he says, not following the script at all, "no, Tony, no, please-"

Whatever resolve Tony might have had to push Loki out of here crumbles at that; before he knows it his arms are wrapped tightly around Loki's chest, face buried in his neck. "No," he breathes, and there might be some tears from either, from both of them. "Shit, I'm sorry, babe. I didn't mean it, I'm sorry."

"Please," Loki says, sounding like the word was dragged out of him. "Please tell me what's going on, Tony. One minute you're pushing me away so hard and the next you hold on to me like you're drowning – tell me, please."

Tony didn't mean to – he never meant to tell Loki, because he knows that if he does there is no way Loki will leave if he knows and he'll get so hurt when Tony dies, but he's been trying to break up with Loki for weeks now and still hasn't managed. It never used to be easy (except for when it was, and he hates who he was in those moments more than anything) but it's neigh on impossible now. There is a selfish part in him, and he keeps thinking, _just this. Let me just keep this_. He's been giving away everything else – his company, Pepper, Rhodey's suit – made it so his death wouldn't leave as much of an impact, but Loki. There isn't anything he can give Loki that he hasn't already given him, that he hadn't already planned on giving him. Maybe it's funny or maybe it's pathetic, but Tony never even changed his will. Since he was twenty-five Loki had always been the sole beneficiary, and no matter how petty he got in all the years (and he can be plenty petty if he wants to), Tony never even thought about changing it. Not even in those two years when he thought it was over for good, he'd never have Loki again. Sometimes that in itself was petty – he'd known that it would hurt Loki, had _hoped_ that it would, a pathetic, childish revenge from the grave – but it's more than that. It's… _Loki_. They're blended together in ways that are impossible to disentangle by this point, through time and memories and just _being_ , all the small things and all the big things that connect them and that are impossible to erase. He knows because he tried, knows that Loki tried too, with little to no success; they're just too entwined. It used to be a double-edged sword but they've managed to make it mostly good in the past two years – so fucking good, Tony sometimes is scared of going to sleep because he doesn't deserve it, and he doesn't know if he'll wake up only to find it was all a dream.

And here he is, death the last thing he wants, but he has to play with the cards he's been dealt with, and maybe he has to stop jerking Loki around. He has to either send him away once and for all or he can keep him close, but he has to put it all on the table. Pepper and Rhodey are one thing, but Loki… is entirely another.

There's not much choice about it in the end, and maybe he hates himself a little for that, for being selfish enough to keep Loki despite of how much it will hurt him. He'd tried, had tried to send Loki away, but Loki isn't as easy to hurt anymore – or maybe he still is, only has stopped running away from it. Tony is selfishly glad he won't have to deal with the consequences of his actions, and that too is something he hates himself for, leaving Loki with such a mess.

Maybe the only way to make up for it is by giving him the chance to at least resolve it a little.

After all the hesitation, it's ridiculously easy to say. "I'm dying." There, done.

Loki's arms go a little slack. "What?"

"Palladium poisoning, from the arc reactor." Tony laughs, painful and raw. "Can't live with it, can't live without it." Literally. Salvation and damnation in one. There is some poetry in that but Tony isn't in the mood to find it.

Hands flying to the arc reactor, Loki pulls away to look at its blue-white glow underneath his shirt. "Is that why-" He stops, catching up. Yeah, that's why Tony had refused to let Loki see him without shirt for the past couple of weeks, but that's not really the issue right now.

Tony pulls his shirt up to show Loki the patterns on his skin, veins darkened. He doesn't want to see Loki's face but doesn't let himself look away, and there are way too many parallels to when he first showed Loki the arc reactor for him to be at all comfortable with anything.

Loki's face is pale, shocked, eyes big and glassy. His forehead furrows in that expression Tony never wanted to see on his face ever again – the look of heartbreak on Loki's face is gut-wrenching. It makes him want to move heaven and earth to chase it away, but there's nothing, nothing at all he can do.

Breath going shallow and fast, Loki reaches out slowly. Just before he's about to touch Tony's chest his eyes flicker up, checking in. Not seeing anything discouraging on Tony's face, he finally touches Tony's skin.

Not that he can feel anything. It feels like nothing is wrong at all, no raised marks, no change in temperature or anything. Tony hasn't touched himself in weeks – just looking at the marks he sometimes gets sick, so disgusted is he by the way his skin looks – but he knows that much.

Loki takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, presses his palm flat to Tony's chest, still so careful, like Tony is made of glass, like he'll shatter. "There is nothing-" he asks, but it's not really a question, because he knows the answer already.

Nevertheless, Tony replies. "No. I tried everything I can think of." Loki knows that, knows Tony, knows how determined he can be, how "give up" is not really part of his vocabulary. He's asking because he needs to hear it.

Eyes still shut tightly, Loki asks, voice barely above a whisper, "What's going to happen to you?"

Tony shrugs. "Nausea, mood swings, weakness, body tremors, bad circulation…"

"So basically what has been going on with you for the past weeks?"

At that, Tony can't help but wince. He hadn't realised it had been so obvious, and the thought that Loki had been right in the middle without knowing what was happening… a part of him feels really fucking guilty for doing that to him, while another is thinking that it's a good thing he's only telling him what it's all about now, that way Loki won't have to live for weeks with the knowledge that Tony is dying.

He cups Loki's face with one hand, rubs his callused thumb over his soft skin, his cheekbone. Loki is not fragile, not by a long shot, but he's broken. Maybe only a little by this point, and in Tony's eyes it anyway only makes him all the more desirable, more gorgeous, but it would be nothing but coquettish to think that this won't break him all over again. The last thing in the world Tony wants to do is leave Loki and he fucking hates that there is no choice about this, that all he can do is sit by idly and wait, watch Loki try to cope with this. "I love you," Tony says, voice a little raw, because if there is nothing else he can give Loki, there is at least that. "So fucking much, Loki."

Loki makes a noise low in his throat, something like a sob, and he blinks and tears are running down his cheek, hot and wet on Tony's skin when they kiss. "Tony," he gasps, voice shaky, "I'm not sure I can do this without you."

And if that isn't what scares him the most. "You can," Tony says forcefully, and the tears on his cheek aren't just Loki's. "You'll be gorgeous and brilliant, whether I'll be here or not. And fuck, babe, it kills me that I won't be here to see it, but you're magnificent, and you will always be."

Tony is holding Loki too tightly and he knows it, but Loki doesn't seem to mind, and he's shaking in Tony's arms, or maybe Tony is the one who's trembling, he doesn't know. All he knows that this is fucked up and probably not fair – certainly not on Loki – but there is fuck all he can do about it by this point.


End file.
